𝐔𝐧𝐟𝐚𝐦𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐚𝐫 𝐎𝐝𝐝𝐬²

VIII. Cornucopia

°•°•[Cornucopia]•°•°

THE GRUOP CLIMBED the nearest sand strip and the allies walked one after another in silence. They were careful in case the Careers were there, but they would notice if they were, after all. Their walk wasn't too long, the lake wasn't that big. 

When the group reached the Cornucopia, Julia noticed a strange movement in the forest at two o'clock. "What's happening there?" she asked. 

"The poisonous fog," Katniss answered. The one that killed Mags. Julia was sorry for mentioning that, noticing the stiff expression on Finnick's face. The blond felt a bitter taste in his mouth on the mention of his mentor and mother figure. 

The Golden Alliance started picking through the weapons. Johanna looked pretty happy even though they were in the arena, and she found a pair of deadly axes. She wouldn't thinking about twice when using them against anyone. Julia and Xavier were talking and went through a pile of weapons, taking a few knives, spears and small axes. Finnick also looked through weapons, but he was already quite pleased with his trident, so he took only a couple of knives and two spears. Katniss was pleased with her bow and arrows too, but she took a few extra knives anyway. Everything was useful. And Peeta was drawing something with the sharp point of his knife on a piece of smooth, big leaf he must've gotten from the jungle. 

Katniss leaned over Peeta's shoulder and saw he's creating a map of the arena. In the center is the Cornucopia on its circle of sand with the twelve strips branching out from it. It looked like a pie sliced into twelve equal pieces. There was another circle representing the waterline and a slightly larger one indicating the edge of the jungle. "Look how the Cornucopia's positioned," he said to her.

She took a minute to examine the Cornucopia and see what he meant, coming to a small realisation. "The tail points toward twelve o'clock," Katniss said.

"Right, so this is the top of our clock," he said, and quickly scratches the numbers one through twelve around the clock face. "Twelve to one is the lightning zone," he wrote lightning in tiny print in the corresponding part of the arena, then works clockwise adding blood, fog, and monkeys in the following sections. 

"And ten to eleven is the wave," the brunette pointed out, and Peeta added it. Finnick and Johanna joined the duo at that point, armed to the teeth with weapons like tridents, axes, and knives. Julia and Xavier came right after them, also heavily armed, with more knives, spears and even a few small axes. Neither of them has ever fought with them, but they found them useful. 

"Did you notice anything unusual in the others?" Katniss asked Johanna, Julia and Xavier, since they might have seen something she, Peeta and Finnick didn't. But all they've seen is a lot of blood and falling fruit. Peeta added a fruit section onto his map. "I guess they could hold anything."

"I'm going to mark the ones where we know the Gamemakers' weapon follows us out past the jungle, so we'll stay clear of those," said Peeta, drawing diagonal lines on the fog and wave beaches. Then he sat back on the sand. "Well, it's a lot more than we knew this morning, anyway."

The group nodded in agreement, and that's when Katniss noticed it. The suspicious silence around them, and the sounds from the jungle were the only background. She just had the time to fire an arrow at Gloss before he had time to do anything else. 

The point of her arrow disappears into his right temple, and in the instant it takes to reload, Johanna has buried an axe blade in Cashmere's chest, killing her in an instant. Finnick knocked away a spear Brutus threw at Peeta and took Enobaria's knife in his thigh. Julia threw a spear at Enobaria, but she ducked, the spear whooshing above her head, and ran off. If it wasn't a Cornucopia to duck behind, they'd be dead, Katniss thought, having a desire to finish them. Boom! Boom! The cannon firing has confirmed there's no need to finish off Gloss or Cashmere. The group of allies was rounding the horn, starting to give chase to Brutus and Enobaria, who sprinted down a sand strip toward the jungle. 

Julia ran towards them, but the ground jerked beneath their feet in a beet of time and they were flung on my side in the sand. The circle of land that held the Cornucopia started spinning fast, really fast, and Julia could see the jungle going by in a foggy blur off blue, green and sandy yellow. She could barely tell anything apart. She felt the centrifugal force pulling her towards the water and she buried her hands and feet into the sand, trying to get some stability on the spinning ground. Julia hoped she could stay away from the water. She felt a body bump into her and she flew back two meters, but managed to hold on. Redhead was nearly in the water. she somehow caught the person's left arm with her right, gripping on it tightly. "Hold on!" she yelled. "Don't let go!" 

"No shit, Julia!" she barely heard Xavier's voice though she was near her. "I'm sorry!" 

"No need to apologise as long as you are okay!" 

Between the flying sand and the dizziness and sand flying around them, Julia gripped Xavier harder and shut her eyes closed, hoping he wouldn't fall off. She couldn't stand the thought of losing him. "I love you," she whispered quietly, knowing that Xavier couldn't hear her. 

But somehow, he said the same thing to her. "I love you." 

 There was nothing much they could do but hold on until, with no deceleration, the Cornucopia slammed to a halt. Julia felt relieved that she and Xavier were fine. Though coughing and queasy, Julia immediately hugged Xavier, and she hugged her back. Their companions in the same coughing condition. All Finnick, Johanna, Katniss and Peeta have hung on. Gloss and Cashmere's dead bodies have been tossed out into the seawater during their wild ride.

The whole thing, since the Careers came up to that moment, couldn't have taken more than two or so minutes. The group sat there panting, scraping the sand out of their mouths. 

"Was this really necessary?" Tamara asked her father. "This was a mess." 

"We can't let them think we're on their side," Plutarch answered and looked at the screen to check out Caesar's commentary.

"This was an unexpected turn of events," Caesar spoke into the camera. "Just as the alliance discovered that the arena was a clock with a help of Wiress from Three, their whole knowledge became useless. They cannot orient themselves..."

Plutarch turned to his daughter again. "Go talk to the mentors. Tell them to send their tributes some bread from Three soon." 

Tamara nodded and left the Gamemakers' room. She became skilled in going around unnoticed long ago, even before her mother died when Tamara was ten. Being a Gamemaker's daughter meant she had a lot of attention on her, so when in was in her or her father's interest that she is unseen, she can do it. She had learnt in when she was just around 15, when her dad got his job.

A short chapter because I don't have much inspiration. I hope I get some soon so I can continue writing.
xo, xo, bookworm